you have thought this a cruelty or injustice Why might not God leave such a thing to his free will as well as his own salvation or damnation And if he might leave it to a serpent necessarily to beget a serpent why might he not leave it to the will of man to do it freely And if man had chosen such a generation could his off-spring if capable have charged God with cruelty And if not as nothing surer why might not God leave it to the will of man to remain righteous and beget a righteous seed or to fall and beget such as himself Obj. 7. But the pains of hell consist in the torments of conscience and the conscience of an infant will not torment him for that which he could not help Answ 1. It is past our reach here to understand fully the nature of hell torments 2. The loss of Heaven is the greatest part of the misery 3. The sense of that loss will be no small positive misery 4. And all this which the adversaries grant will be confessed due for original pravity and because they are the seed of sinners Obj. 8. No Law forbiddeth us to be the seed of Adam or to draw corruption from our Parents Answ The Law forbad Adam in whom we were to sin and it requireth perfection of acts and habits and condemneth sinful habits as well as sinful acts and go we are violaters of that Law Obj. 9. If Original sin were derived from Adam to us it would have been in the humane nature of Christ at least Adam's act would have been imputed to him as being really the son of man Answ The relation and corruption go together and both of them belong to them that derived their natures only from Adam according to the way of natural generation But Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost who by sanctifying the substance of the Virgin of which he had his humane nature and by the miraculous way of procreation prevented the derivation of guilt or sin Obj. 10. Christ saith except we become as little children we shall not enter into Heaven Answ He speaks not of their innocency but of their beginning the World and their lowliness except we be little in our eyes and begin the World a-new by conversion we cannot enter into his Kingdom But this denieth not but that infants may have corruption that unfits them for his Kingdom as you confess Obj. 11. 1 Cor. 7. 14. The children of believers are holy Answ 1. But not by nature but by grace and the faithful's interest in the covenant and dedication of them to Christ in Baptism 2. They had no need of this hallowing if they had not naturally some corruption And 3. The children of unbelievers are still unclean 4. And the children of the faithful are not perfectly holy for then they should be better than the Parents Obj. 12. By the same reason you may say that we are guilty of our immediate Parents sins for we were in them more immediately than in Adam Answ We have the same natural interest in our nearest Parents sin and some participation which we must lament and not excuse But of that I have spoken by it self The chief objections here omitted I answered before from Adam's or our nearer Parents being themselves forgiven and so having no guilt to derive to us and their being sanctified and from the creation of the soul c. and go shall not again repeat the answers to them It better beseems us to confess our sin and misery and value the remedy than to tell Christ that we will not so much as pray for the pardon of Original sin nor be beholden to him to forgive it nor to his spirit to cure it which yet is really the thoughts of them that think they have no such thing Among others read Philip Mornay Lord du Plessis in his Verity of Christian Religion in the Chapters of Original sin The vanity of Dr. Taylor 's opposition may be easily seen by what is said his begging the question about the supernaturality of holiness to Adam his frequent mistakes and self-contradiction Whether Posterity be guilty of Death by reason of the Actual sins of their immediate Parents AS little as is said by Divines on this Question it is no over-curious or needless unprofitable subject but very weighty and needful to be understood by all Christians that can reach to the understanding of it For as it is useful for the opening of the cause and nature of Original guilt so if it should prove true that we are guilty by the sins of our immediate Parents it would be necessary that we know it for our due humiliation and that we may in penitent confessions and deprecations prevail with God for the pardon thereof As it is thought a dangerous thing to deny original sin because they that so do will not be humbled under it and sensible of their misery by it nor of the necessity of God's mercy or Christ's blood for the pardon of it nor will apply themselves to God by Christ in Faith Confession and Prayer for pardon and consequently are in danger of missing of pardon so in the present case the same reasons will prove it as well dangerous to deny our guilt of our Parents sins if indeed we are so guilty Which that we may enquire into after a very brief explication of the terms of the Question I shall lay down a few necessary distinctions and then assert what I judge to be the truth in certain Propositions and prove such of them as most require proof 1. By immediate Parents we mean those that personally beget By Posterity we mean their children so begotten By Reason of Actual sin we mean by the Merit of those sins which our Parents themselves committed or by a resultancy from such sin compared with the rule By guilt we mean obligation to punishment or duness of punishment By death we mean the destruction or final misery of the creature either death temporal or eternal We must here distinguish 1. Between the seminal causal potential and virtual being which we have in our Parents and the personal existence that we have in our selves 2. Between the guilt which immediately resulteth from actual sin and the guilt which riseth but mediately from it viz. by the means of some intervening corruption of our own 3. Between the sins of Parents while we are seminally in them and their sins after our birth either 1. in our infancy or 2. in our riper age 4. Between guilt of fault and guilt of punishment 5. Between the aggravation of voluntariness actual and of voluntariness habitual or dispositive 6. Between plenary proper guilt and guilt so called by analogy of attribution and guilt so called equivocally 7. Between punishment univocally analogically or equivocally so called 8. Between obligation to the pain of loss and to the pain of sense 9. And between the meer sense of that loss and the sensible accusations of conscience for actual
is in us ab origine or by propagation not only because it is the original of all other sin 3. Concerning Original Righteousness which must first be understood we must enquire 1. Whether it was natural or supernatural 2. Wherein it did consist For the first 1. It must be understood that the Righteousness which we enquire after is 1. Qualitative the holy inclinations of the soul called the Image of God 2. and Relative the Innocency or Justifiableness of man but not 3. the Active Righteousness for that was 1. after Creation 2. freely performed by man himself and yet it may extend to that as it is denominated from the inclining principle And for the question 1. As Natural signifieth that which was created in us or which we had in the beginning with our being from God as our gracious Creator so Original Righteousness was Natural that is 1. It was not given him at any time following his Creation 2. Nor was it given at the same time as a thing distinct from the soundness and rectitude and integrity of his nature but was that rectitude it self and as much concreated with man as health and beauty with the body 2. As natural signifieth that which belongeth to the essence of man and is inseparable from him so original righteousness was not natural no more than health and beauty are to the body 3. As Natural signifieth that which is now propagated and born with us and comes by generation to man in his lapst estate so Original Righteousness is supernatural 4. Though as it signifieth that which would have been propagated to posterity if the Parents had not sin'd and lost it so Original Righteousness is natural 5. As Natural signifieth that which may be recovered or maintained by meer natural means so Original Righteousness is not Natural for though to Adam it was as natural to the soul as health and beauty to the body yet 1. He was commanded by supernatural revelation certain positive duties for the exercise and maintaining of it and for the attainment of salvation which was its end 2. And now we are deprived of it we cannot expect the restoration but by means supernatural even by Christ and the Spirit and supernatural revelations And that Original Righteousness is Natural so far as I have said that is concreated and should have been propagated to posterity if not lost by Parents I shall here prove by several Arguments because I find Dr. Taylor and others that deny Original sin do build on this supposition that Infants are deprived of this Righteousness as some superadded thing and yet be in puris naturalibus without sin But there is no such state nor ever was as a state of pure nature in a rational creature without holiness or sin as I prove Arg. 1. Man was naturally able and disposed to know God to be God and his God go He was naturally able and disposed to love him as God and his God which is the sum of his Original Righteousness By disposed I mean morally inclined and not void of that holy inclination to love God which is the life of morality and rectitude of the will The Antecedent is undoubted if the rational nature had not been disposed to know God it had been blind deformed and not fit for the ends of its creation The Consequence is proved thus If the understanding had been disposed to know God and not the will to love him as God then the will would have been created lame and deformed and unfit for the ends of its creation and there would have been a disproportion if not a conflict between the faculties of the soul but the Consequent is not to be admitted go nor the Antecedent Arg. 2. God made not man without all moral good go He made him with the inclination to God which we call Charity in habit or disposition which was his Original Righteousness We speak not of Active good for that was to follow his creation but of inward Virtue in habit or disposition The Antecedent is proved 1. In that else he had been imperfect as to his end 2. And not born the Image of God's goodness and by the other reasons hereafter following And if God made man without all moral virtue and goodness then could he lose and fall from none The consequence is proved because there can be no proper moral good where the true principle and end are wanting but where the love of God is wanting the true principle and end is wanting go c. God is the end Love is the adhesion to God Heathens and unregenerate men have no moral good any further than they have some kind of love to God and respect him as the end Which as it is in them but analogically called love to God so have they but an analogical morality Arg. 3. Man was created in the Image of God go he was created in Original Righteousness which consisted in the inclination of the soul to God as God The Antecedent is exprest in Gen. 1. 26 27. The consequence is proved from Eph. 4. 24. with Col. 3. 10. which shew that the Image of God besides that which was in our Essentials in power understanding and will consisted in wisdom righteousness and true holiness It 's impossible that the moral Image of God should be without Original Righteousness and the love of God Arg. 4. God look'd on man when he had created him and saw that he was very good Gen. 1. 31. go he saw that he had an inclination to his Maker or habitual love to God for the rational creature cannot be very good without it Arg. 5. If man was made for God as his ultimate end then was he made with Original Righteousness or an holy inclination to love God but man was made for God as his ultimate end go c. The minor is certain Though it be doubtful whether naturally man could know that he might enjoy God by immediate vision of his Glory and also whether it should be in Heaven or on Earth or where and also whether he could obtain the beatifical vision without supernatural revelation and assistance yet it was plain that he was made for God as his end that is to please him and to love him and be beloved by him and enjoy him according to his capacity 1. Else it had been no duty of man by nature to intend God as his end and to love him above all 2. And it had been no part of his sin or misery to take up short of God which are false as shall be shewed The major is proved thus All the works of God are disposed for the attainment of their ends go so was man and go with Original Righteousness for without Charity in the habit or inclination and so without Original Righteousness man had not been disposed to his end but had been left in an unfitness and indifferency inclined no more to God than to any creature Moreover man was created with an inclination to
is not begotten but with the soul nor would the semen inanimatum come to be an embrio 5. We are sure that semen in corpore animatur anima illius cujus est corpus 6. The conceit of two or three souls which is the last refuge and that the rational only is created is at large confuted by many and it feigneth man not to procreate his kind when bruits do theirs nor to beget children indeed but something else that is irrational And yet even this way supposing God to have at the creation by a decree annexed his creating act of the rational soul to mans procreating of the sensitive the propagation of original sin might be defended Obj. But by this doctrine still God is made the cause of the sin for you say he is the total cause of the soul even as much as if man were no cause Answ God causeth it two waies 1. At the first creation of man he put a virtue into the souls of our first Parents to propagate their like on supposition of his requisite universal influx to bring that cause or virtue into act 2. As an universal cause he effectually procureth second causes to do their part and draweth forth their virtue and communicateth on his part all that belongeth to the universal cause to communicate Now if God be the Author of Original sin it must be by one of these two acts viz. by Creation or by his universal Causation and influence but it is by neither of these Not by creation giving the generative specifying virtue to man for he made man upright and commanded him to continue so and so it was an upright nature that he should have propagated if he himself had not depraved it by sin Not by his universal concourse or causality for that causeth only the soul as such and not as defective or corrupted as the Sun causeth the life of a toad as well as of a lion and of a stinking weed as well as of a flower of the greatest beauty and sweetness but is no cause of the ugly venemous nature of the toad or of the stinking nature of the weed save only by accident nor is it any fault in the Sun that such creatures are generated by it so though God is the cause of generation by his universal influx yet is he not the cause of Original sin for the universal cause supposing the specifying virtue in the seed doth work on all things according to their natures and though God was and is the specifying cause by creating the procreating force in man yea and by his constant creative emanation yet he created not the vice and go is not the cause of that Obj. But a lame man doth not beget a lame child nor a blind man a blind child Why then should a sinner beget a sinner and corrupted Parents have a corrupted issue Answ The eye and leg are not the soul which hath the generative power nor yet essential parts of the body But let any of the essentials of the body as the brain or heart be depraved and it will appear in the issue especially if it be so with both the Parents much more when the soul is depraved by whose power the body it self is formed and which is most essential to the man the pravity must needs be communicated Lameness and blindness in the Parents alter not the procreating seed but consist with its integrity But none can communicate that which he hath lost and hath not either actually or virtually himself Obj. Righteousness and holiness were not communicable by natural generation if Adam had not fallen go by generation we have no privation of them Answ 1. The antecedent is false they would have been propagated to posterity as health and beauty to the body as I proved in the beginning 2. If generation as such had not conveyed them yet if God had affixed by a standing law his supernatural gifts to natural procreation it would have proved against the consequent that we are sinfully defective in being without them Obj. Learning and wisdom are not now derived to posterity Answ Nor any thing that is acquired and not natural Obj. Godliness is not now conveyed by nature go it should not have been so then Answ I deny the consequence 1. Because that holiness that was natural then is supernatural now You may propagate eye-sight to your children because it is natural but you can neither restore your own nor theirs when it is put out without a supernatural power 2. Because though Adam was our natural head and root and so had power to hold or lose the grace which he had received for himself and us yet when it came to the work of our restoration he being utterly insufficient to recover himself or us the work is put into another hand and Jesus Christ the second Adam is now our Root and Head and as he purchased all so all our mercies are at his disposal and he giveth them out as he seeth meet and go as he gave Adam pardon and holiness for himself so will he give to all his members for themselves himself being still the treasury of his Church and keeping the keys of life in his own hands 3. Sanctification is imperfect in this life and go leaving some corruption no wonder if that be propagated by the best 4. But yet as Adam should have conveyed an innocent holy nature to his children if he had not lost it even a legal righteousness such as he had himself so now though generation do it not yet Christ in his Gospel Covenant hath made over a Gospel Righteousness to the infants of the sanctified who devote themselves and their children unto God in the Baptismal Covenant so that as posterity is unhappy through their first Parents sin so children may recover happiness from Christ by means of their Parents faith and holiness and dedicating them to God in Christ Obj. Foolish Parents beget wise children go wicked Parents may beget godly children Answ 1. I grant that God may graciously sanctifie the seed of the ungodly but that is not by their procreation 2. I deny the consequence because that foolishness comes from the distemper of the organs and the bodies ineptitude to serve the soul and no alteration may be made by it upon the seed of generation But when the soul is depraved by sin there is no virtue left in nature to rectify that by generation and hinder the propagation of the pravity 3. And still as to guilt all these objections say nothing No man can convey the innocency which he had not Obj. Adam when he was pardoned had no guilt go he could not convey what he had not Answ 1. There is a threefold guilt 1. Reatus facti 2. Reatus culpae 3. Reatus ad poenam To be guilty of the fact is to be truly one that did commit it or participated therein To be guilty of the fault is to be truly culpable by reason of that fact it being really
sin go c. The major is proved 1. In that they have immortal souls and virtually rational 2. They are under many promises and threats that are mentioned in the Scripture 3. They are disciples of Christ and members of his Church The minor is plain 1. In that they make infants uncapable of any moral evil eo nomine because they have no actual volition or choice 2. And thereby they conclude them uncapable of moral good 3. And thereby they conclude them uncapable of judgment 4. And of any rewards 5. And of any punishments 6. And they say they are under no law or obligation 7. And go they can be no subjects of Christ's Kingdom or members of his Church Only God may do with them what he will and so he may with bruits Arg. 16. The infants of the unbelieving Gentiles were sinners and children of wrath go infants are capable of sin and some at least are sinners c. The antecedent is proved from Gal. 2. 15. We Jews by nature or birth and not sinners of the Gentiles i. e. by nature 1 Cor. 7. 14. Else were your children unclean but now are they holy The Anabaptists make this to speak but of legitimation The Papists by being unclean think nothing is meant but being not baptizable and to be holy they think is but to be baptizable and and that a posteriore because it is presumed that such infants will be religiously educated but Christ hath instituted no Baptism but what is for remission of sin and he doth not actually remit sin to some more than to others upon a presumption of the Church that they will hereafter be educated as Christians There is some holiness mentioned by the Apostle which is the reason why those infants more than others are to be admitted to Baptism which supposeth and signifieth it and that cannot be only a thing future and uncertain Divines commonly call it among Protestants a federal holiness and that this supposeth infants capable of moral good and evil I have shewed on this Text in my Treatise of Infants Baptism Eph. 2. 3. And were by nature the children of wrath even as others Forasmuch as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth nature birth or natural disposition properly and signifieth custom only by a rare and improper acception go it is not here to be interpreted by custom without such cogent evidence as none hath yet given us Those that attempt a collecting of testimonies for this improper use sometimes do give us many that make against them There is no necessity that will warrant our reception of such a tropical and unusual sense Job 11. 12. For vain man would be wise though man be born as a wild asses colt that is of a rude sottish unruly disposition Ezek. 16. 2 3 4. Son of man cause Jerusalem to know her abominations and say Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem Thy Birth and thy Nativity is of the Land of Canaan thy Father was an Amorite and thy Mother an Hittite and as for thy Nativity in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut neither wast thou washed c. This allegory sheweth that part of Jerusalem ' s abhomination was natural from the birth and nothing but sin is abhomination before God Job 25. How then can man be justified with God or how can he be clean that is born of a woman 15. 14. What is man that he should be clean and he that is born of a woman that he should be righteous The illustration that is fetch'd from the natural weakness and impurity of the Heavens the Moon the Stars doth not contradict the exposition of the former words as of moral impurity for the impurity is according to the subject and natural impurity is not unrighteousness Arg. 17. From the necessity of regeneration Joh. 3. 3 5 6. Except a man be born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit If there be a necessity of a new birth to make us spiritual the first birth bringing forth but flesh before we can enter into the Kingdom of God then by the first birth we are born in sin But the antecedent is certain go so is the consequent The minor is plain in the Text 1. That flesh begets not spirit but flesh 2. That regeneration is therefore of absolute necessity At present I will suppose that by flesh here is not meant sin that the adversary may not think I beg any thing of him The consequence of the major hath this double proof 1. Because flesh without spirit in a rational creature is sinful or morally corrupt for being deprived of the spirit it is deprived of moral good 2. Because nothing but sin can keep a rational creature and subject of God out of Heaven for to be kept out of Heaven is one half at least of the damned's misery and to live and know that loss as immortal souls must do will produce also positive punishment Arg. 18. That doctrine is untrue which maketh God the Author of sin but so doth the denial of Original sin go it is untrue The major will be granted The minor I prove The doctrine which feigneth that innocent nature is under such a moral impossibility of not sinning as that no one person in all the World that hath the use of reason shall escape it doth feign God to be the Author of sin But so doth their doctrine that deny original sin go it feigneth God to be the Author of sin Or The doctrine which feigneth that innocent nature doth sin for want of necessary grace to escape it doth make God the Author of sin But so doth the denial of original sin go c. For the proof of the major of both Arguments consider 1. That the adversaries suppose nature in infants to be innocent 2. That it is granted by them that de facto all men that have the use of reason are sinners except Jesus Christ the Papists except also the Virgin Mary If they denied this it 's easily proved 1. By the common experience of the World as to the generality 2. By plain Scripture 1 Joh. 1. 8. 10. If we say that we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us If we say that we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in us Jam. 3. 2. For in many things we offend all Eccl. 7. 20. For there is not a just man on earth that doth good and sinneth not And that there is a moral impossibility to escape sin appeareth 1. By the universality of the event that which no man in all the World in any age attaineth to notwithstanding all the helps vouchsafed is morally impossible 2. And the Scripture assertion proveth it in that it alloweth us to conclude it of all that we know not and of those that are yet unborn And that the World sinneth for
upon our selves are but misery and not properly sin Sin may make a man sick or lame or blind or mad and yet these be no sins but the effects of sins Sin may kill us and yet death be no sin There must be therefore some other formal reason which can be nothing but the disconformity to the rule 2. Adam as was said before had original righteousness which was imputable to him as a moral good before his actions go it is not necessary to the morality or imputability of a principle that it be the consequent of our acts 3. Jesus Christ had moral good before his humane action go the same will follow 4. Infants that are sanctified have moral good that is not the consequent of their acts go c. 5. The dedication by believing Parents and entring the child into the Covenant of God is taken to all the ends thereof as if it were the infants act 6. Among men the will of the Parents is in many cases reputatively the will of the child and children receive good or are deprived of it and oft-times penally for the Parents acts Obj. 3. No righteous Judges do punish the children for the Parents sin Answ 1. It is not for the Parents only imputed but their own contracted that God doth punish them And he takes that cognisance of the heart that man doth not 2. And he is more holy and just than man 3. And yet all Common-wealths are directed by the light of nature to punish infants for their Parents sins as naturally participant The Laws do threaten the posterity of many offenders for the Parents sins and Judges sentence them accordingly As that Traytors or some other most odious offenders shall be deprived of their honours and estates and their children after them for ever It cannot be said here that this is but an affliction to the posterity and not a penalty or that it is a meer consequent of the Parents sin and not the effect for it is expressed in the Law and Judgment and is malum naturale propter malum civile vel morale and it 's on a subject And it 's a privation of the good that he should else have possessed and many positive evils of mind and body care sorrow want labour c. follow thereupon Obj. 4. But God hath told us that the soul that sinneth shall die and the child shall not die for the Parents sins Answ 1. go it followeth that children that do die have sin of their own 2. The text plainly speaketh of those children that see the evil of their Parents sins and do not after them but renounce them and live in righteousness themselves which is nothing to the present case Obj. 5. It seems to make God the Author of sin when he will cause us to be born of sinful Parents and infuse a soul into sinful flesh when we cannot help it Answ 1. I have proved that it is the denial of original sin that makes God the Author of sin resolving it into his workmanship or denial of sufficient or necessary grace so that no man in the World avoideth sin 2. But the true doctrine of original sin doth manifest that it is not of God as I have shewed God as Creator setled the nature of his creatures and the course of propagating them before man sinn'd and he was no ways bound to change the course of nature when man had corrupted it to prevent our being born sinners Though we know not fully the manner of God's concourse in our generation and how he causeth souls yet we are sure it is according to the first established course of nature appointed in the creation as much as the generation of any other creature is and that 's enough God was not the cause of Adam's transgression and his Law of propagation went before it and his concourse with the Parents maketh him no more the cause than the Sun is of the poison of a toad Obj. 6. But it seemeth cruelty to damn infants for that which they could not help Answ The deniers of Original sin do much more impute cruelty to God as I shall prove For 1. They confess as much of the misery and sufferings of infants as we assert 2. And they maintain that God inflicts all this without the least desert of theirs For the first they confess that infants die and they confess that God is not obliged to revive them and that without Christ they should have no part in glory If God may annihilate them or deny them an immortal life they cannot deny but he may cause their souls to live and their bodies to revive if he please and if so that he may inflict as much positive pain as shall be proportioned to the evil of annihilation And it is a great deal of suffering that man would choose to prevent annihilation They confess that God may make them to be toads when such creatures are what they are without sin and so continue them for ever And who would not endure much misery as a man rather than be a toad or serpent They confess that infants have immortal souls at least capable of immortality and that God is no ways bound to annihilate them and that he may shut them out of happiness which is half damnation and that in equality with the worst it being the same Heaven that all men lose and if they are rational creatures they must needs have the torment of positive grief in the despairing apprehension of their loss And for our parts we presume not to be so far acquainted with the secret judgments of the Lord as to determine whether infants shall have a greater degree of misery in their damnation than all this which the adversaries grant So that we differ not about the degree of suffering 2. And then for the cause of it there 's the difference We say that God inflicteth not all this but for their own desert by original sin And our Adversaries say that he doth it without the least fault or desert of theirs And then I would know whether there be any reason why God doth all this against infants but because he will do it If man had never sinned he might have done it according to them If it be said that he punisheth the Parents in the children I answer 1. What punishment to Parents is the everlasting loss or suffering of the children 2. Or what punishment is the present death of children to harlots and unnatural persons that desire to be rid of them 3. And how can he cause the subjects of his Kingdom to suffer so much without their own desert 4. And if their natural interest make them not in some measure partakers of their Parents sin what reason why they any more than other creatures should be chosen to the suffering And here I would propound this question What if God had left it in the beginning to Adam's free will whether he would beget a man or a toad or a serpent Would
which the first sin did not bring us under As to the pain of loss it is clear because when we have forfeited all we can forfeit no more but by the first sin we forfeited all But this is not because the sin in its own nature hath not the same demerit as the first but because man is capable of no greater privation than he hath incurred already nor of any greater torment if the first sin deserved as much torment as mans nature was capable of So that terminative here is no new super-added punishment according to the first Law But yet none may hence conclude that here is no new guilt because it is another fundamentaliter formaliter For divers relations may have the same Terminus We do by following sins incur a new and further obligation to the same penalty which would be to a greater penalty were we capable of it naturally When a Felon is guilty of death on one crime yet twenty bills may be brought in against him which may charge him with a manifold guilt though but of one death As a man may have a manifold right to one good thing which he possesseth and a right super-added to his first right as God hath the right of Redemption to us super-added to the right of Creation so may a sinner have super-added and manifold obligations to the same punishment Yet here we see some difference between our first guilt of Adam's sin and all super-added guilt that the first having deprived us of all our felicity none that follows can deprive us of any more except of the mercies new given us by the Gospel which the meer sins of Parents shall deprive no man of that disowneth them Prop. 22. Though it be but an imperfect analogical guilt which the act of Adam's or other Parents sin doth directly and immediately leave upon us yet the corruption or pravity of our own nature inherent in each person which by Adam's sin was introduced doth bring on us a further guilt And so mediately the said actual sin doth bring it Which occasioneth so many Protestant Divines to place original sin as ours in this pravity alone Prop. 23. Though this natural depravedness may seem to infer a lesser guilt because it is not voluntary as our actual sins are Yet 1. we being seminally in him that voluntarily caused it and 2. it being the habitual pravity of the will it self and so far voluntary and 3. therefore containing virtually all future actual voluntary sins 4. and being more contrary to God's holy nature and will than one single actual sin would be it hath therefore many aggravations instead of that one which it seemeth to have less of And so must needs bring a true and proper obligation to punishment till Christ dissolve it as well as actual sins Prop. 24. It seems to me that the sins of neerer Parents may do much to the corrupting of our natures as well as the sin of Adam and to increase the pravity that from his only sin would have been upon them Proved 1. There is the same reason why the sins of immediate Parents should deprave the nature of Posterity as there is that Adam's sin should do it Some Divines say that God took away his image from Adam some that he took away his spirit and so the loss of his image followed some that Adam's sin did it self destroy or blot out that image As to the first I say 1. It is not sound because it makes God the most proper immediate if not the only true efficient cause of sin and of the sinning sin which is the worst of sins Also because there is no word of God that saith any such thing 2. If it were true the sin of Cain deserved the same as well as the sin of Adam As to the second opinion I say 1. It is yet undetermined de nomine among Divines whether it be not the Redeemer only that giveth the spirit and whether it can properly be said that God gave his spirit to Adam in innocency though I am for the affirmative 2. But suppose that there be some conserving aid which God did withdraw by what name soever it be called yet thaat withdrawing was in order of nature consequential to mans sinning and not before it and that sin it self did deprave the soul 3. The sin of Cain deserveth the like desertion as well as the sin of Adam but man's nature is not now capable of it in the same sort as then it was because then we were innocent and had the perfect image of God upon us and were capable of losing it but now we have lost it already our Parents sins can but remove us further from God and hinder our recovery The third opinion seemeth most warrantable that Adam put away or blotted out God's image and so depraved his own soul for which see Capel of Tempt and Thes Salmuriens Vol. 1. disp de statu hominis lapsi ante gratiam sect 19 20 21. But there is the same reason why Cain's sin should deprive his posterity of God's image save only that they had not the same to lose for the destructive nature of the sin is the same and so is the merit And though they have not that perfect image of God now to lose yet they have some remnants of moral virtue assisted by the light and law of nature and the nature of man is capable of being made worse than yet it is And there is the same reason why Cain's sin may make it worse as there is why Adam's may make it bad Man's fall was a change of his end He first took God for his ultimate end and chief good He was seduced to take him for one that envied his felicity and for a liar and to seek his felicity in the creature against the command of God The ultimate end of man's actions being thus changed all moral good is so far perverted for all means and subordinate ends depend on it And so the stream of mans actions are turned into a wrong channel the sensitive appetite is hereupon become the master-principle in the soul as ruling the rest For as Placaeus saith ubi sup Cujus facultatis finis proximus est hominis ultimus ea caeteris omnibus facultatibus tanquam architectonica imperat that faculty whose neerest end is mans ultimate end doth rule all the other faculties as the master of the work And thus man being turned finally to sensibles from God his nature is depraved and God's image defaced Yet is not the soul removed to the utmost distance from God for then he should be as bad as the Devils and all men should be equally evil and the sensitive appetite would so uncontrouledly reign that man would be worse than bruitified his reason serving only to purvey for the flesh so that the light and law of nature would not restrain him nor any thoughts of a God and a life everlasting once stop him in his sin Now it is apparent
and our participation of his guilt is our original sin in a double sense 1. As he was the original of all mens sin 2. and as we are guilty of it from the original of our being But of Parents sin not all the world is guilty but their own posterity and that not as the first but as a secondary or neerer cause Sect. 17. IX That God hath made many promises to the seed of the faithful above all others is notorious in Scripture in the case of the blessed seed and sons of God before the flood and in the case of Sem Japhet Abraham Isaac Jacob and so on to the end But were there no more than the second Commandment and Exod. 34. 6 7 8. it would be justly past controversy And I have largely proved it to Mr. Tombs in two Books my Plain Scripture-proof and my More proof of infants Church-membership Sect. 18. X. The Apostle expresly saying else were your children unclean but now are they holy and this very supposition being the reason of our baptizing the children of some persons but not of all the World doth yet more exclude all reasonable do ubt with those that are for Infants Baptism Sect. 19. XI As to be baptized and taken into the Church is not the right of any infant meerly as a child of Adam redeemed for then we could make no difference nor meerly as they are elect for that we know not but as they are children of Believers dedicating them to God which is the condition of their right so not to have right to Baptism and its benefits is not the meer fruit of Adam's sin but of the Parents privative not-believing and not-dedicating them to God the controversies about pro-Parents is not pertinent to our business and need not stop us Here therefore is notorious a grand penalty of Parents sin on children for a penal privation it is Sect. 20. XII The true natural interest of Parents in their children now is as certain as Adam's in his off-spring We have our being as truly from them as from him and were as truly naturally in them as in him Sect. 21. XIII The promises to the children of Believers are more numerous and plain in Scripture than the promises to Adam's seed if he had stood Sect. 22. XIV The penal comminations against the seed of the wicked are so numerous and notorious in Scripture that it is a thousand pities that any Minister should not acknowledge them and the effects Even from Cain to Cham and the children of all the old World and of Sodom and so to the end And if there were no Texts to prove it but the two before-mentioned the second Commandment and Exod. 34. with Matth. 23. It 's sad that any Christian should deny it Sect. 23. XV. It is notorious in Scripture also as to the execution that God hath punished the children not only for Adam's but for the neerer Parents sins Which is true of all those drowned in the deluge as the assigned cause sheweth and of the seed of Cham and the Sodomites and the infants of the Amalekites and all the Nations destroyed by the command of God of Ishmael Esau the Egyptians Achan Gebezi and abundance more named after in this Dispute and recorded throughout the Scripture and the Jews were not ignorant of it when they said His blood be on us and our children nor the Disciples when they said Did this man sin or his Parents that he was born blind Job 9. The matter of fact is past all doubt and therefore the right Sect. 24. XVI It is daily notorious among us that the children of some wicked persons Adulterers Drunkards Gluttons idle persons c. have their bodily temper vitiated by propagation from their Parents by reason that the Parents had first by sin corrupted their own nature some have the pox some ideots some decrepit some otherwise diseased c. And to say that this is no punishment to the children or that it is only for Adam's sin is that which I will not do whatever any other may Sect. 24. XVII And it is certain that the minds of some such persons children are extraordinarily depraved some have natures extraordinarily lustful some furious some sensless and inconsiderate some slothful some false versatile and untrusty some mutable and unconstant some have appetites hardly to be restrained c. Yea and all the foresaid diseases of the body much tend to the evil of the soul And is all this no punishment or of none but Adam's sin Sect. 26. XVIII It is notorious that outward calamities in their estates and other accidents befall children for the Parents sins The sacrilegious perjured murderers and despisers of Parents seldom have a progeny that is not notably plagued for their sin And Divines should not teach Atheists to deny such judgments of God Sect. 27. XIX He that saith that children have no guilt of the sins of any Parents since Adam doth by consequence say that God neither ever did or will do or justly can punish any child in the least degree positively or privatively for any such Parents sin But he that dare so say is bolder and blinder than I would have any wise and holy Teachers of Christ's Flocks to be Sect. 28. XX. Holy men in Scripture were used in their sufferings to confess and lament the sins of their fore-fathers as the cause as I have after cited out of the Psalms Ezra Nehem. Daniel c. Sect. 29. By this and what followeth I have rendred to the Reader a true account and reason of my supposed dangerous opinion But nothing maketh me more wonder at my learned and worthy accuser than his O caecos ante Theologos quicunque unquam fuistis I had almost said It is more modest for me to say that my unacquaintedness with Grammar maketh me here not understand him than to suspect that so Learned an Academical Doctor among so many Learned men and Libraries can possibly mean as his words seem to import But modesty must not blind us And yet I am loth here to be tempted to waste so much of my little time to the wearying of my self and the Reader as the recital of the words of so many Divines as concurr with me in this opinion would require but a taste may serve to cure his admiration and vindicate Divines from his reproach Sect. 30. 1. Tertullian saith advers Marcion li. 2. c. 15. p. 467. c. 1. 1. Justitiam ergo primo judicis despice cujus si ratio constiterit tunc severitas per quae severitas decurrit rationi justitiae reputabuntur Ac ne pluribus immoremur asserite causas caeteras quoque ut sententias condemnetis excusate delicta ut judicia reprobetis Nolite reprehendere judicem sed revincite malum judicem nam etsi patrum delicta ex filiis exigebat duritia populi talia remedia compulerat ut vel posteritatibus suis prospicientes legi divinae obedirent Quis enim
Hoc vero absurdum videtur eum justitia Dei pugnans Respon Non foret absurdum etiamsi Deus posteriores magis desereret ac puniret nam quanto plura peccata a genere humano cumulantur tanto magis ira Dei accenditur exasperatur poena juxta illud Nondum completae sunt iniquitates Amorrhaeorum c. Vt veniat super vos omnis sanguis justus c. Sed minor negatur etsi enim Deus propter justitiam suam peccatum originis hoc est vitium naturae reatum in omnes posteros transire sinit tamen simul ex misericordia metas figit peccato ut non semper majorum peccata actualia imitentur luant posteri nec semper malorum parentum mali aut deteriores ac miseriores liberi existant Sect. 40. XI Mr. Gataker ' s words Mr. Poole thus translateth in his Synops Crit. in Exod. 20. p. 403. Punit Deus sapenumero liberos propter peccata Parentum ut constat exemplis sanctionibus S. Scripturae Vid. Exod. 4. 22 23. 12. 29. 34. 7. Num. 14. 18. 2 Sam. 12. 14. 1 Reg. 13. 33. 14. 1. 17. Rationes 1. Quod liberi sint res atque possessiones parentum 2. Liberi praeterea sunt partes sive membra parentum sunt quasi una persona cum Parentibus ut recte Althus Dicaeolog l. 1. Vid. Gen. 20. 7. 18. Mat. 15. 22. Quod ad loca in contraria prolata Deut. 24. Jer. 31. Ezek. 18. 1. Debent 〈◊〉 mortem Deo c. 2. Non sunt haec apud homines semper injusta c. where he instaneth in similitudes See his Sermon it self on 1 Kin. 14. 17. Sect. 41. XII If I thought it would be worth my own and the Readers trouble I would undertake to produce abundance more of Protestant Writers and let but Expositors on the second Commandment be examined by him that doubteth of it and he will be satisfied if he have store at hand I only now say of many in general that the ordinary saying of such Expositors is that temporal punishments and some spiritual are oft inflicted by God on children for their Fathers sins I will give you the sense of many in Deodate's words on Exod. 20. 5. Visiting that is I enquire after it and punish it Of the Fathers As concerning eternal judgment upon the soul every one dieth for his own iniquity Jer. 31. 30. but for the Fathers sins the children are often punished in body in goods and other things which they hold and derive from their Parents Num. 14. 33. 2 Sam. 12. 11. and 21. 5. 15. And besides God oftentimes curseth the generation of the wicked withdrawing his grace spirit from it whereby imitating their Parents wickedness they are punished in the same manner 1 Sam. 15. 2. Matth. 23. 32. 25. Sect. 42. Here note 1. that there can be no punishment temporal or eternal where there is no imputed guilt Therefore all those Divines who say that not only Parents in their children but children for their Parents sins have the least punishment do thereby assert a guilt 2. That there is no guilt of sin which deserveth not great yea perpetual punishment if not remitted 3. That privation of Grace and the spirit here mentioned is a most heavy punishment tending to that which is perpetual 4. That children are to derive from their Parents or from God by them greater mercies than goods health c. even Church-membership right to Baptism and so to pardon and the other saving benefits of the Covenant as being holy Therefore by the same reason as health goods c. may be denied them because they are derived from Parents as Deodate speaks Baptism and its benefits may be denied them 5. And hath not the universal Church given us their judgment of the case who have in all ages judged that Baptism is to be denied to the children of Heathens and Infidels unless other mens owning them make them no longer theirs At least I may say if as many be of my judgment concerning our guilt of Parents sins as hold that Baptism and its fruits are to be denied to such children of Infidels the number will be so great and honourable that I would wish this worthy Dr. no more to make them seem as none And as I have before shewed not to be baptized is to them a penalty and that not only in the judgment of Papists who shut such out of Heaven but of the ancient Doctors who took Baptism to be our solemn investiture in a state of life and the seal of pardon and right to salvation as Gataker against Davenant de Bapt. hath proved by citing a multitude of their testimonies as an useful Index to save Readers much labour on that point And I have elsewhere proved at large that the Scripture mentioneth no Baptisme of Christ's Institution which was not for the remission of sin If any say that this is no new penalty but a leaving them under the old and that it is not for the Parents unbelief but the Parents only do omit their duty needful to the childs liberation I again answer that had there been no Saviour Covenant Means or Hope it had indeed been no penalty because no privation but a negation And had not the child 's right and deliverance been laid on the Parents Faith and Consent as a Condition they had but negatively left them under the penalty of Adam's sin and their corruption with the guilt next to be mentioned But remember that poena damni the loss of Heaven is vere poena and so is the loss of Pardon and Grace not to an uncapable but to a capable subject And that sins of omission are truly sins And that as a Father murders his child if he feed him not so he doth by omission do much to damn him if he do not believingly dedicate him to Christ for I speak not of unavoidable want of Baptism which Austin himself thought not to be damning however mistaken herein by many A mans own not-believing is nothing but it is such a nothing as is punished with a non-salvation which is another nothing yea that and other omissions with positive damnation and the pain of sense 6. But further note that this great instance sheweth that it is not only the sins of Parents before Generation and in it but also after the child's birth while the child is void of the use of reason and will for himself that the child may be punished by and for with this penal non-liberation Much more evident then is it that this with his additional pravity and bodily distempers all together are a penalty for the Parents former unbelief and other sins with this omission 7. And again I say that if the very guilt and corruption derived from Adam had not been my next Parents first it had never been mine no more than my nature For I had it not immediately from Adam but from
them And if I had that as theirs first I must by the same reason have more of theirs And who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean And David's Mother is said to conceive him in sin Psal 51. 8. Let it be noted for answer to the objections from Ezek. 18. c. 1. That there is by the Covenant of Grace a pardon with right to Christ and Life freely given to all the faithful and their infant-seed as by them having full power thereto in Covenant given up to Christ Now no one is damned for pardoned sins The infant is at once guilty of Adam's and his Parents sin and at once his nature receiveth pravity from both but immediately only by the immediate Parents and at once both are pardoned to him and this pardon solemnly sealed and delivered in Baptism Therefore well may God say to the pardoned to the penitent and to the innocent that he shall not die for his Parents sins no not for Adam's 2. For the Text speaketh to the adult and to men that thought themselves innocent and that they suffered for their Parents sins and not their own And God assureth them 1. that if they are innocent they shall not die 2. yea if they be repenting persons and pardoned and obedient evangelically hating all the sins of their wicked Parents they shall live 3. yea this is true of their children also for their sakes But this is not because the Law never judged them guilty and worthy of death but because the Grace of Christ forgiveth it else the Text would exempt all infants from the guilty of death for Adam's sin But there is not a word in the Text to prove 1. that children need no pardon for their guilty of Parents sins 2. or that those that are not pardoned being themselves unsanctified or if adult live wickedly as their Parents did shall not die for them 3. or that such sins of Parents are not the cause of such guilt and pravity in the child as that he is truly said to die for his own sin Sect. 43. XIII Yet further methinks to a conformable Doctor the judgment of the Church of England in her Liturgy should not be insignificant Remember not Lord our offences nor the offences of our fore-Fathers neither take thou vengeance on our sins In what sense do men subscribe this and daily use it 1. Do they think that the Church meaneth only Adam's sin by our fore-Fathers 2. Or that by not-remembring they mean not-pardoning and not-punishing 3. Or do they think that they pray for the dead in Purgatory Hell or Heaven Or rather do they not imitate David and the Jewish Church and Ezra Nehemiah Daniel c. who confessed that they were punished for their Fathers sins Sect. 44. I conclude this subject with a second request to the Christian Reader to pity and pray for the poor distressed Church of Christ which is distracted and distressed thus even by such as are most devoted to its service through the great weakness of our judgments and the unhappy passions and strivings that thence follow Either I or this worthy person are mistaken or else we differ not When I look to the Person only and not to the Evidence nor to the Consenters I have far greatest reason to suspect that I am liker to erre than he And if it prove so the evidence yet seemeth to me so full for what I hold that I am almost hopeless of being otherwise perswaded And my judgment is not at my command How then shall I avoid the injury of souls But yet I think that to hold our selves more guilty of our Parents sins than we are is no dangerous damning error it may molest us but not undo us and I never saw many much molested by it But if either we differ not when yet he giveth you so loud an Alarm or if it be he that erreth indeed alas what must the Church expect from the too great number of ignorant and ungodly Teachers when it must be thus used by the Learned and the Godly My thoughts are 1. that it deserveth tears from faithful Ministers to observe that so considerable a part of the common guilt and misery of all mankind should by godly men be no more confessed and lamented 2. And that by those that for any denial or extenuation of our original sin as from Adam are so heinously and justly offended with the erroneous yea ready to vilifie men as Arminians if not Socinians that they think come near it 3. That ever the stream of a Party Reputation Interest Example or whatever else of that kind should with so many good men have so great a power in making truth or error duty or sin good or evil orthodox or heretical in their conceits and so much faction he found in their Religion 4. That ever so many millions should be taught impenitency in so plain a case when repentance and confession have so considerable a place among the requisites to remission 5. That ever so many millions should by Preachers be taught that they have no need of a Saviour nor of Pardon nor to pray for Pardon for so much of their guilty and punishment 6. That ever so much of the plain stream of Scripture-evidence can be denied and made light of by good men that cry up the Scripture authority and sufficiency even when they can lay a great stress in some unprofitable hurtful controversie upon some one Text whose sense is not to be certainly understood 7. That ever good and learned Teachers should be so conceited of their own conceptions as in their confidence in such a cause to brand God's truth with the name of error and their brethren as dangerous men for not erring as they do 8. And finally that the poor people must be under such grievous perplexing temptations as I before mentioned and that the Papists should be thus hardened in their opinion that we shall never be at peace and concord unless we unite in their usurping tyrannical Peace-maker And that Poor Scholars and young Ministers must be thus frightned from Truth Duty Charity and Peace and men made believe that the Church is about to be set on fire if we are told of that which is contrary to our former opinions This must be lamented if it be not I but others that here erre Sect. 45. But yet before I end he calls me so loud to consider of another matter that I must not deny his invitation In my Direct for Cure of Church-Divisions Dir. 42. I said Your belief of the necessary Articles of Faith must be made your own and not taken meerly on the authority of any And in all points of belief and practice which are of necessity to salvation you must ever keep company with the universal Church for it were not the Church if it erred in these And in matters of peace and concord the greater part must be your guide that is caeteris paribus In matters of humane obedience
shall no flesh be justified in his sight Rom. 4. proveth that even to Abraham and his seed justification was by remission of sin through faith in Christ and not by the Law or their own innocency And if it was so with Abraham's seed it is so still with our seed Arg. 9. Rom. 3. 23. 9 10 c. All have sinned and come short of the Glory of God being justified freely by his Grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation c. go infants have sinned and come short of the Glory of God and must be justified by this propitiation for sin Ver. 9. We have before proved that Jews and Gentiles are all under sin Ver. 19. That every mouth may be stopped and all the World may become guilty before God If men will groundlesly say that all these universals are to be limited to the adult they do but say they will believe what they list and words shall signifie what they will Obj. The Text speaks of actors in sin Answ True because it speaks of all the World among whom the adult actors were the principal part Obj. The word All is to be taken limitedly in many other Texts Answ 1. What of that shall we go deny its properest signification without a proved necessity and shall words be taken improperly by us at our pleasure because they are so sometimes where we may prove it 2. Will you allow this plea to them that use it against the texts that speak for Christ's dying for all when yet they have as fair pretence 3. The scope of the Apostle and the oft repeated universals plainly shew that it is the guilt and condemnation on one side and the justification on the other side of all simply that are condemned or justified even of all the World that he speaks of And he lays the strength of his Argument upon the universality for if any might have pleaded not-guilty before God and justified by the Law or their Innocency it had spoil'd the Apostle's argument So many plain Scriptures are not to be forced Arg. 10. If infants without a Redeemer should have been all shut out of Heaven and denied everlasting happiness then are they guilty of original sin But the Antecedent is true go so is the Consequent The minor is granted by those that do oppose us If it were not it 's easily proved 1. From all those Scriptures that appropriate salvation to the Church and to the members of Christ and to such as have it by his purchase and procurement who hath the keys of the Kingdom 2. From those Scriptures that tell us that if any have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8. 9. and that without holiness none shall see God Heb. 12. 14. and that except a man be regenerate and new Born he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven with many the like 3. From the incapacity of an unholy soul to see and love God and so to be happy it being a contradiction And God hath given us no ground to believe that he will sanctify all infants after death and that without any satisfaction for their sin by the death of Christ The consequence of the major proposition is proved thus Infants having souls made capable of immortality either shall live immortally or not If not that privation of everlasting life is an evil so great that any rational man would choose a perpetual tolerable punishment to escape it and God would not thus use so many subjects of his Kingdom to whom he hath undertaken to be a King and judge them righteously and all without any measure of sin in them And I find not yet that the adversaries assert this If they do they make infants to be but meer bruits of which anon If they live an immortal life and rise with others then either in Heaven or out of Heaven in happiness or not If not in happiness which is before proved and by them granted then it must be in misery 1. Because the very privation of that happiness is half hell and more 2. Because there is no middle state to a living rational creature they will have feeling and knowledge and go they shall feel good or evil to them and they cannot but know that they are deprived of Heaven and Happiness which knowledge must cause a positive grief And thus God doth afflict them by the greatest privation and some positive pain which Reason or Scripture or his relation of a righteous King and Judge will not suffer us to think that he doth without any sin of theirs For shall not the Judge of all the World do righteously Will he destroy the righteous with the wicked far be it from him Gen. 18. 23 24 25. Had all the infants of the old World of Sodom of Amalek of Midian been wholly free from participating in sin they had not been destroyed by a righteous Judge Arg. 11. If infants are under God's displeasure or deprived of his acceptance and complacency then are they guilty of original sin but the antecedent is true go so is the consequent If they were in the favour of God they would be saved for all the subjects of his Kingdom have the blessings and rewards of loyal subjects that are in favour with him but without Christ and pardon through his blood they would not be saved go c. If they were not under his displeasure he would not deny them his sanctifying grace and heavenly inheritance which they are capable of and which is the portion of his faithful ones But these he doth deny to some and would deny to more or all if it were not for their pardon and reconciliation through Christ Nor would he torment them with pain as he doth many in this life and after kill them and then shut them out of Heaven if he were well pleased with them The consequence is proved in that nothing but sin can make God displeased with a rational creature Only moral evil can deprive them of his favour Were original corruption but malum physicum such a natural evil as blindness lameness sickness madness c. God would not withdraw his favour for it Man hateth a serpent or a toad that have no sin because their natures are contrary to ours but no meer physical evil is evil to God or contrary to his nature and go none such is hated by him A toad is no more contrary or odious to God than a lark go for such evil infants could not fall under his displeasure He loves the sick the lame the leprous as well as the most sound Arg. 12. Infants have a nature derived from their Parents who were corrupt and guilty go they cannot be uncorrupt and innocent The antecedent is undeniable The reason of the consequence is because the cause can produce no effect that 's better than it self What the effect receiveth is from its cause and the cause cannot give that
a fault These two God taketh not away by pardon for it is impossible that which is done should be undone or that which was a fault should be no fault The third which is the obligation to punishment is it that is done away by pardon Now suppose this perfectly done away to Adam or any godly man yet this pardon is but for himself and he propagateth to his children the two former reatum facti culpae which were never done away and then the third obligation to punishment will follow immediately per nudam resultantiam as long as they have themselves no pardon 2. Christ is the Quickening Spirit though Adam was a Living Soul and Christ is now the Fountain of Grace and gives it out in the measure and on the terms that he seeth meet And as God past sentence on mankind before he granted his pardon to Adam and promised the Messiah so his pardon was no full remitting of that sentence but such a personal remission to Adam as should consist with much punishment in his imperfection in grace and his toyl and labour and death c. and with the guilt of his posterity till each man received from Christ the Mediator his own remission And so as he gave in the promise a pardon to Adam he hath on the same condition given it to all Adam had not power to cure himself when he had poisoned his nature but Christ being become the common Physitian hath prepared a remedy for him and us and if we take it as Adam did we shall be healed And the infants are included in the Covenant with their Parents So that notwithstanding all these objections the 12th Argument standeth good Arg. 13. If natural corruption be in infants viciously disposing them to evil and against good then original sin is in them But such corruption is in them go c. The minor is proved by the common experience of the World All infants shew their inclination to sin as soon as they can act it yea so strong and obstinate doth it prove that frequently it resisteth all the endeavours of the most prudent diligent godly Parents that would root it up and of Masters and Teachers that apply both Doctrine and Discipline against it And never is it conquered but by special grace and never is it so restrained in any that live to the use of reason as not to break out into many actual sins And if all men in all ages in all the World do sin and frequently sin it shews that there is some corrupt inclination in the nature of man to sin for the effect revealeth the cause yea it is so great corruption as to lead into some kind of moral necessity of sinning or moral impossibility of not sinning or else some one in the World would have escaped it which none did but Christ and the Papists except but the Virgin Mary Obj. Adam sinned that yet had no corruption Answ The fall of one or two may come from wilful carelesness or inconsiderateness where there is no corrupt inclination antecedent but so cannot the fall of all the World especially their so frequent falls and ordinary obstinacy in sin If now and then a man only should die we might impute it to some accident but when all mankind dieth we are convinced that mortality even a disposedness to death in some sort necessitating it is become natural to him so here Obj. Infants have the use of sense as soon as they are born and are long coming to the use of reason and reason is long weak when sense is strong and this by reason of infancy as such and go in all this time the prevalency of sense can be no sin and so long a prevalency must needs breed a habit and this is it which you take for original corruption Answ 1. If sin had not made the appetite inordinate infants might have lived till they had overgrown their infancy without transgressing an ordinate appetite would have carried them to no inordinate acts And they would not have been so liable to many of those evils that now provoke their passion and to cry when they are hurt would be no sin And so as they had grown up their temptations would have been but proportionable to their reason and go they might well have overcome them As children have not the reason of grown men so neither have they their temptations They have not worldly riches or honours or dignities to care for they are not tempted to the sins of lust And as now the love of their Parents keepeth them even in childhood from transgressing the commands of their Parents and maketh them desirous to please them so would the love of God have made them desirous to please him and keep his commands 2. We see sin now break out in children before custom can engage them to such a habit and against that custom which Parents engage them in against it and with greater obstinacy than that meer custom could so soon produce So much for the minor The consequence of the major is proved 1. From the purity of God's nature and of his Law and from the nature of this corruption This corruption is a disconformity to the holy nature will and law of God and that in his subjects go it is sin The inclinations contrary to his holy nature and image in a rational creature must needs be abhorred of God because they are such And the fleshly mind the body of death is contrary to the Law 2. These same corruptions which are born with us remain in the unsanctified and partly in others till they come to age and then they are sin even the same degree that was born with us for it is not only the degree that custom after superaddeth that is sin Certainly that absence of good and backwardness to it and proneness to evil is sin in the adult go it was sin before For it was the same thing and in a true subject capable of vice and virtue 3. The only Argument against it is vain viz. from the involuntariness as shall be shewed Arg. 14. Adam and Eve had moral good before any actual volition go infants are capable of moral good before any actual volition and consequently actual volition or willing is not of necessity to the morality of a habit or inclination and go they are capable of moral evil The antecedent is proved by the concession of all that Adam had whether naturally or supernaturally the image of God and virtue or holiness ut principium before he acted it and so had original righteousness by creation or gift which was bonum morale and made him capable of the divine complacency and acceptance The parity of reason proveth the consequences Or if there be any disparity it makes against the adversary infants being virtually pre-existent in their Parents Arg. 15. The doctrine that numbreth infants with bruits in point of morality and felicity is false but such is that doctrine which denieth original
that there is the same natural and meritorious force in Cain's sin to turn his nature further from God as was in Adam's to turn it so far away Or if man were at the worst yet his following sins have the same power to fix him in that misery as his first had to bring him into it For they also are a wilful turning from God to the creature as well as the first Arg. 2. It is past all doubt that the sinners own personal nature is made worse by his own actual sin experience proves it too fully Scripture saith that they that have been accustomed to do evil can no more learn to do well than a Blackmoor can change his skin or a Leopard his spots And there is no reason that I know of that can be given why a more corrupt Parent should not beget a child more corrupt and deliver him the sinful improvement of his pravity as well as that all sinful depraved Parents should beget depraved children And though this controversy be mixed with the great difficulties about the propagation of the soul and the matter of its corruption yet which way soever those be determined it makes not against the thing that I assert If the soul be ex traduce and so corrupted then the case is most easy If man beget the sensitive soul corrupted and God do then promove that to the excellency of being a rational soul as some think the material species of the phantasy is raised by the active intellect to be the intelligible immaterial species still there is the same reason why the more corrupt Parent should propagate a soul more corrupt as that all should propagate a corrupt one If the soul be depraved either by a taint from the body or by a willing accommodation of it self to the body through the force of the natural desire of union de quo vide Placaeum ubi supra as water to the shape of the vessel that it is put into still the reason holds the same for the degree of corruption as for the thing it self That God by way of penalty should create the soul sinful immediately seems plainly to make him the Author of sin But if it were so yet there is the same reason of demerit to provoke him to create the soul of Cain's son yet more sinful as there is in Adam's to provoke him to create it sinful at all Arg. 3. Besides experience assureth us that all children bring not an equal degree of pravity into the World if we may judge by their first exercise of reason or use of passions But if there were no difference made since it should seem that all should be corrupted alike further than God cureth any and so maketh a difference We see also that many of the children of the most vicious people are more vicious than the ordinary sort of men are We see also that some mens bodies being distempered by their vices they propagate those bodily distempers to their posterity which we evidently perceive do make a great alteration on the soul from whence we see some persons very sottish and silly yea some ideots and some extreme talkative some extreme passionate some lustful some malicious some gluttonous some drunkards and this above the corrupt inclination which appeareth in the ordinary sort of men and plainly sed by the temper of the body Obj. 1. If our corruption were increased by the sins of immediate Parents then the World would grow worse and worse and we should have been Devils long before this age Answ 1. Most Divines say that the first sin would have done all this if God in mercy had not prevented or remedied it 2. God still resolveth to keep the World in order under his Government and therefore restraineth corruption and will not suffer it to grow as according to its nature it would 3. This is one of the common benefits that the World receiveth by the grace of the Redeemer that they grow not as bad as else they would 4. For the sake of the Church God will restrain them Obj. 2. We see many of the worst men have good children Answ No mans corruptions do put his children into a remediless condition and therefore God may sanctifie whom and when he pleaseth So may he do also by the Parents themselves for all their sins and yet those sins do make them worse Obj. 3. Then you may say that Grace is propagated by generation from our immediate Parents as well as sin and yet experience telleth us the contrary Answ 1. This makes as much against the propagation of original corruption from Adam as from our neerer Parents If it were of any force it would be against both 2. There is so great a difference between grace and sin that quite alters the case For 1. Grace is something extrinsecally adventitious and now as to the cause of it and manner of working it supernatural but so is not sin 2. Grace is an adventitious perfecting quality Sin is a defect as it is in the rational faculties But defects are more easily propagated than adventitious qualities for one requireth nothing thereto but a defective nature for nothing can convey to another that which it hath not it self but the other requireth more than nature to its propagation No acquired knowledge or skill in Languages Sciences Arts or Manufactures are propagated to posterity by nature but the ignorance of these is natural 3. But above all it 's considerable that original sin so far as it containeth a positive inclination seems to be radically in the inordination of the sensitive appetite raging against the rule of reason though the rational faculty be corrupted too and gives up it self to the slavery of the sensitive yet the sensitive seems to be the root Now it is evident that nature doth much in propagation of the sensitive or else man should do less in generation than a beast But Grace is radically subjected in the rational faculties though by participation also it reach the sensitive and here nature doth less in propagation We see by experience that a natural gentleness and calmness of the passions and such other lower common virtues as are subjected in the sensitive part are born with some men and from the temperament of the body one man is more mild patient temperate than another but it is not so with the intellectual Perfections nor Christian Graces Faith Hope or Charity I shall now proceed to prove so much of the affirmative as I have here owned more than is now held viz. That there ariseth to children from the sins of their neerest Parents such an imperfect guilt so called by analogie of attribution as that God may in vindictive justice inflict on them for the same the penalty so called by the same analogy both of temporal death and of eternal at least as to the penalty of loss supposing that it be not pardoned through Christ And this I prove by these following Arguments Arg. 1. If we are guilty of
of Adam's actual sin so far as we are guilty and we being as truly the children of our neere Parents as of him and seminally in them as well as in him it follows that we have the same natural interest in their sins as in his and therefore the same guilt and reason why God should impute them to us Unless the change of Laws do make a difference which if it do it can be no more than by adding the Law of Grace to that of Nature to remedy its obligation For the nature of things being still the same the same Law of nature still remains and therefore children must now be naturally guilty of all Parents sins as well as then before that guilt be dissolved by remission Though now God will not punish the adult meerly for Parents sins imputed to us yet he might do it if he would supposing he had not by the Law of Grace determined the contrary if it be proved that he might do it then Moreover as then God might suppose a civil interest in Adam's sin as we were parts-future of the same World of mankind on presupposition of our natural interest as his off-spring so now though our Parents be not the root of mankind as Adam was and that 's the main difference yet seeing our neerest Parents may be the root of Families or other Societies whereof God is also the Rector he may suppose another sort of civil interest or guilt of their sins upon us As he imputed Adam's sin to us as he was Rector of all mankind so may he our neerer Parents as he is Ruler of a Family or of some more remote as Ruler of a Common-wealth Obj. But that Law which made us guilty of Adam's sin is abrogated and instead of it is made the Law of Grace God doth not now say to any In the day thou sinnest thou shalt die Answ I know that commination stands not alone and unremedied and I yield that the promissory part is ceased but still every sin doth leave upon us a guilt of death till Christ take it off or else what need could we have of the pardon of it Obj. But that Law was particular and positive in the day thou eatest thou shalt die go it is ceased Answ The particular prohibition of that act of eating is ceased cessante objecto But that particular was grounded on and presupposed a general and that which you call positive how fitly I now enquire not was first natural as to the duness of penalty for each particular sin The Law of nature first saith death is the due wages of sin or every sin deserveth death and this Law doth still remain So that though as to the event we have not that reason to expect eternal death now for Parents sins nor for every sinful act of our own as before the promise of Christ we might have had yet that is not because the Law is abrogated which is the very standing Law of nature nor because now each sin deserveth not such death but because we have now a remedy at hand to put away the guilt I am sure this is the commonest judgment of those Divines that are most against Arminianism for they maintain that all the unbelievers are still under the Law of works it self as to the cursing and punishing power Arg. 2. If we receive the guilt of one sin from our immediate Parents then may we as well receive the guilt of more But we do receive the guilt of one from them go The antecedent is plain For we receive from them the guilt of Adam's sin It is theirs before it can be ours Adam delivered it not immediately to us As we received our nature and persons from our neerest Parents so did we therewith our guilt of that sin The consequence is proved in that there is the same reason of both Why did not our Parents propagate us free from the guilt of Adam's sin Because they were not free from it themselves naturally and therefore cannot give us a better nature than they have themselves And so on the same reason it must follow that being themselves guilty of other sins they cannot convey to us a nature not guilty of them If one be therefore ours because it was first theirs and our nature from them the other must be so too Obj. The Law makes the difference for God hath not made us liable to Justice for our neerer Parents sins as he did for the first Answ This is already answered The Law indeed makes a difference as to the event and execution and actual remaining obligation but not as to the desert The Law declares and shews men to be as they are and doth not judge unequally of men that are equal or of equal actions The same Law though remedied is still so far in force Obj. Our Parents if faithful are pardoned and justified and therefore cannot convey to us the guilt of any sin because they have it not themselves Answ It must be carefully understood that pardon takes not away 1. either the reatum culpae so as that person should hereafter be judged not to have done what he did or not to have sinned in so doing 2. nor yet the natural merit of punishment as if that sin and the person for it did cease to deserve death but only it remitteth the punishment deserved and takes away the legal effectual obligation to punishment or that duness of punishment which must bring it upon us So that Parents may nevertheless convey to their children that natural desert which was not removed from themselves 2. And then remission being a free act of God extendeth no further than he pleaseth and therefore unless the covenant to the faithful and their seed do pardon all their guilt to their seed as well as themselves the very effectual obligation to punishment will follow the natural desert of it to those children that have not such a remission And if this would prove any thing it would prove us not guilty of Adam's sin Arg. 3. If we are guilty of more of Adam's sins than the first or than the eating of the forbidden fruit then on the same grounds we may be guilty of the sins of our neerer Parents But the antecedent is true go so is the consequent The antecedent is proved thus If there were the same causes to make us guilty of Adam's following sins as of the first then thâ—â—e is the same guilt But there were the same causes go 1. We were seminally in Adam as well when he committed his second sin as his first 2. The same Law as to the precept and threatning was in force as de futuro when he committed his second sin as when he committed the first 1. It cannot be doubted but Adam sinned oft between the time of his eating the fruit and God's making the promise of a Redeemer For his soul being depraved and turned into a wrong course of action must needs act sinfully 2. Yea we could not be guilty
more for thereby sin is propagated with and in nature If the Law of this Land do ordain that a Traytor and his posterity be all disinherited and banished you may here put your dilematical question and as you answer it so would we If the Law of God deprive rebellious man of all his felicity and leave him his natural being he will beget a posterity therefore deprived of it because they are his posterity Call this one guilt or two as you please I call it one fundamentally and one subjectively while there was but one subject and many consequently by propagation when that one subject is as it were multiplied into many So that this is but about words and not things 11. It 's further argued Lastly if we are therefore guilty of Adam's disobedience because we are his Sons so that neither the miraculous generation in respect of both Parents such as was Isaack's and John Baptist's nor yet a divine creation of the soul without the operation of man can exempt any man from it what then shall we say of our Lord For his miraculous Conception by the Holy Ghost did not hinder him from being truly the Son of Adam arising from the fruit of David's loins Answ I confess this objection hath oft seemed more difficult to me than all the rest but I see no reason that it should overthrow all our grounds For it stands on the supposition of many uncertainties especially about the way of humane generation and the natural interest of male and female comparatively therein c. But passing by all these because the very naming of difficulties I find offendeth many I stand on the common answer though the part or interest of Mary in Christ's Conception was so much as might prove him man of man and give him the name of the Son of Man of David of Adam yet that was but secundum quid or in the smaller part for the interest of the Holy Ghost in that Conception was the predominant interest and therefore he is said in our Creed simply to be conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary and he is principally and more fully to be called the Son of God than of Man even according to his humanity how much soever of his material substance might be of the Virgin This being so he could not stand guilty of Adam's or any Parents sin because in the predominant sense he was not one of their off-spring but the Son of God conceived by the Holy Ghost 2. And if the Holy Ghost's Conception do free Christ from the actual corruption of his nature as your self confess why not as well from the foresaid guilt or imputation supposing that such there is For why else should not natural pravity adhere to the substance which he received from the Virgin To imagine that Mary was born without original sin is but to make the difficulty greater how she was free that was not conceived as Christ by the Holy Ghost or to run it I know not how far It were more plausible to say that she was perfectly sanctified by the Holy Ghost before Christ's Conception and therefore could convey no guilt to him but what proof this would have let them tell that know 12. After these reasons the judicious Author concluds thus These things I thought good briefly to dispute following the authority of most grave Divines who have disallowed this imputation either tacitly by their silence as Calvin Instit Tilen Thes c. or else openly and in express words as Pet. Martyr in Rom. 5. Chamier Panstrat First that we may not take that for God's word which is not his word 2. That we ascribe not that to God which becometh him not And that we may free the Christian Religion from such unnecessary difficulties And lastly that we may the stronglier prove original sin as it is described Art 10. and 11. of the confession of our Churches Answ 1. We stick not on mens names though we have more Divines against you 2. Whether it be God's word let our foregoing proof manifest 3. Which if we have proved then should not humane reason say it becomes him not especially when the same reason confesseth the like to become all Princes and Common-wealths 4. I think I have done more to free the Christian Religion from difficulties by asserting such an imputation of all Parents sins as aforesaid than you have done by denying all 5. And I think that we may far more rationally maintain original corruption and the justness of punishment for original sin if we maintain the said guilt than if we deny it as you do So much to this excellent Writer Having answered their Objections let me add this in the conclusion Arg. If we cannot be guilty of inherent original sin without the derived guilt of Adam's actual sin then we do derive a guilt of Adam's actual sin But the Antecedent is true therefore so is the Consequent That we are guilty of inherent original sin is by them confessed But this cannot be without a cause or foundation And the foundation or cause must be ours or else the guilt cannot be ours Now this foundation is either meerly the inherent pravity it self or somewhat Antecedent Not meerly the inherent pravity it self For 1. It would prove against no Law for no Law forbad us to be born as we 〈◊〉 Laws are not made to prohibit that which 〈◊〉 not to be what it cannot choose but be The Law against Adultery prohibiteth the Parents to commit it but not the childâ—â—â— be born in it There might 〈…〉 be a Law to prohibit a child in the womb to come forth as to prohibit the â—eed to become a man and such a man Laws 〈◊〉 made to the intelligent 〈…〉 Yet I deny not but original 〈…〉 is contrary to the Law of God 〈…〉 but that is only consequentially 〈…〉 which it could not be if we had not the guilt of the voluntary act which is primarily against the Law 2. The esse of our inherent 〈◊〉 on pâ—â—â—â—ations is in order of nature before the 〈◊〉 or culpability But we could not have had so much as the esse without an antecedent guilt Which I prove thus Either the being of our original dispositions is only a sin or also a punishment If it be only a sin without any antecedent sin or guilt of ours then either God or Man is the Author of it Not God for he is not the author of sin and if he were it would excuse of the guilt If man either our selves or our Parents Not our selves for we made not our selves If our Parents then either their acts are imputable to us or else that would make it never the more ours So that our corruption would be miserie at non peccatum no more sin than the venom of a toad is sin But it 's certain that the very being of our natural qualities and privations is a punishment For God would not inflict so great an evil on us
sin did corrupt nature in specie and others are but personal The ground of this his assertion is that opinion wherein the Papists differ from our Divines viz. that Grace was supernatural to Adam and original sin being nothing but the privation of that Grace or Rectitude and the first sin making a total privation of that to humane nature there is nothing left for after sins to do of that kind This seems his full sense though he speak it not out in so many words But to this I say 1. This as is said doth not at all deny that we deserve punishment for our Fathers sins but only that we are not capable of this punishment in specie and so the main thing is granted which we seek 2. His sentence about the supernaturality of Grace to Adam which yet he affirmeth to be concreated with him is not proved The Scotists do resist him in it as well as the Protestants Read an excellent Dispute of it in Rada's first Controversy shewing how far it is or is not supernatural 3. His ground viz. that naturals could not be lost is unproved There be certain natural perfections of the mind which are so far under the power of exercised reason and free-will that they may be depraved or much destroyed by the abuse of these 4. The word of God and the experience of the World doth fully prove that wicked men grow worse and worse and are prone to apostatize and depart yet further from God and that the very light of nature may be extinguished in part and some men by custome in sinning make themselves much worse than they were by nature go it is certain that men are not so bad by Adam's first sin but their nature is capable of being made worse And they are not at the very worst till they come to Hell And in this life we see great variety in degrees of wickedness among wicked men Particularly as to his answers to the three Arguments To the first drawn from Scripture examples of punishing children for the Fathers sin he saith it is only corporally because the child is as it were a part of the Father quoad corpus Answ 1. Corporal punishment proves that we deserve punishment else God would not inflict it for he will be no more unjust in the lesser than in the greater 2. He that deserves corporal punishment for sin deserves more 3. The whole man soul and body is as much from our neerer Parents as from Adam To the second reason which is drawn from Parents traducing Adam's sin to us and therefore much more their own he confesseth it would hold were their own sin traducible which he saith it is not but the reason is before disproved The third reason is that if we therefore contract sin from Adam because we were in him then may we do it from our other Parents because we are in them seeing the Scripture shews we are capable of growing worse To this he only saith that the first sin corrupteth nature the second only the person But this is a bare denial and no answer to the force of the reason And unless he distinguish of common nature and the persons nature what sense hath it For to corrupt the person qualitatively is so to corrupt his nature What Bellarmine saith Lib. 4. Cap. 18. de Amiss Grat. statu pecc being of less weight than this of Aquinas needeth no other reply That we should have been corrupted by Original sin if Cain and Seth had sinned and not Adam see Aquin. de Malo q. 5. a. 4. ad ult of which saith Bellarmine groundlesly fortasse locus corrumpitur FINIS * Original sin is their own * Disputat of Right to Sacram
of his eating the forbidden fruit if we are guilty only of his first sin For that was not the first His unbelief of God and believing the Serpent and others more did go before it 3. Yea the sins that Adam committed after the Promise do in their nature deserve our sufferings as much as the first though that desert had a remedy provided If any still reduce all to God's meer will and say that it was his will in his first actions to deal with Adam as the root of mankind but not in his later sins I must expect till they bring some proof of such a will of God or such a Law and still say that the will and law of God doth not make sinners of innocent men nor make sinners no sinners any otherwise than by pardoning and sanctifying them So that 〈◊〉 were as much in Adam after the promise as before and his sin was of the same demerit naturally and therefore we are as well guilty of that as of the first And then for the consequent it is acknowledged by most of those whom we now oppose that we are equally related to Adam's later sins and to those of our neerer Parents I mean to all that Adam committed before the propagation of his Progeny And there are the same causes as is before manifested Though our neerer Parents were not the root of all mankind as Adam was yet are they as much a cause of us and our nature and of so much of mankind as spring from their loins as Adam was And all the progeny of Cain did spring as truly from him as from Adam And all the World since the Flood were as truly in the loins of Noah as of Adam and so naturally equally interessed in their sins Arg. 4. If our natures may be corrupted more by the sins of our neerer Parents then may they be guilty by them as well as by Adam's But the antecedent I have before proved go The consequence depends on the fameness of the reasons that guilt and depravation should concur from our neerer Parents as well as from our first And it seems that participation in guilt is pre-requisite to the depravation of nature else it might seem some kind of injury to us that another should have power to make us so miserable Sin is commonly called the punishment of sin Arg. 5. If God may without any injustice bring death both temporal and eternal on the son of a sinner without intending it as a punishment to the Son for the Father's sin then may he also without injustice nay in justice inflict the same death as a penalty for the Father's sin But the antecedent is true as I prove thus 1. That which all Rulers may do without injustice that God may do without injustice But all Rulers may without injustice deprive the children of a Traytor or other offender of those enjoyments which the Father hath forfeited himself and which were to have been conveyed from the Father to the child if the Father had not forfeited them If a Traytor forfeit his Lands and Honours his Son is justly deprived of them though the Prince intend it not as a punishment to the Son Because the Father cannot convey to his Son that which he hath not himself as having lost it on his forfeiture and the Son hath no right to it when the Fathers right is gone So if a wicked man do forfeit his right to all blessings in this life or that to come he cannot convey a right to his Son which he had not himself And what other way should that Son have such a right unless God should give it him which he is or was free to do or not It 's true that God by a new covenant hath given this everlasting life to believers but that 's not to all nor doth that deny them to be guilty of their Parents sin before nor yet that it deserveth death still as to its nature and might bring it were it not pardoned 2. God hath no obligation on him according to the Law of works to give health peace or any blessing in this life much less eternal glory to the son of a sinner 2. And for the consequence 1. It is evident from what is said that God cannot be charged with hard or cruel dealing in regard of any wrong that we should suffer if he punish us thus by deprivation for our Parents sins for if it be no cruelty to do the same thing upon the meer occasion of their sins which is unquestionable then it is no cruelty to do it in respect to their sin as the deserving cause 2. And for the point of justice as it is already proved to be non injustum so it may be proved to be justum thus Where there is a real participation in the sin there it is just that there should be a participation in the punishment because of that sin But we did really participate in the sin as of Adam so of our neerer Parents go For the minor they that were seminally in them though not by personal existence did really participate with them in their sin But we were seminally in them go This will be further confirmed in that which followeth Arg. 6. If we should have been guilty of the sin of our neerest Parents though Adam had never sinned then are we guilty of them now But the antecedent is true go Here I suppose that Adam had not sinned and our neerest Parents had If any say this is not to be supposed I answer Though it may not be affirmed to have so been yet we may in dispute suppose it had been Nor have I yet seen it proved that God made any such promise to Adam as to confirm all his posterity on condition that he did not commit that or any sin If Adam had begot a posterity no better than himself was in his first created perfection and under the same Law then they would have been peceable and mutable as he was and liable to the same penalty upon their sin as he was But Adam would have begot a posterity no better than himself for ought we can find by Scripture which no where promiseth him a better that is an immutable or indesectible posterity and they would have been under the same Law for it was suited to their perfect nature go From what is said the antecedent is evident For if we should have been as much in our neerest Parents as we were in Adam and they have been under the same Law then their sin would have brought on us the same guilt and punishment For example if Cain had been the first sinner and Seth had been innocent the posterity of Cain would have been all guilty and corrupted as Adam's posterity now is For the same causes would have produced the same effects The consequence is clear in that Adam's sinning first can be no cause why we should not be guilty of the following sins of our neerer Parents which otherwise we